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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (102012)	6/19/2003 9:09:33 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

First, you have no recognition of the meaning of the ascendency of the neoconservatives in establishment circles. Most of the neoconservatives define America's role in the world in moral terms, tempered by realistic considerations, to be sure. Your current nemeses are exactly the one's most prone to pursuing an activist pro- democracy agenda. Second, even the realists tended to incorporate the reflection of our values into the idea of the national interest, realizing that nations cannot have an utter disjunction between their mores and their foreign policy. The realist argument, however, was that the primary imperative was survival, and the secondary imperative was to gain influence, however it is to be used, and that there are ways that any regime, regardless of its ideology, employs to those ends. In other words, the argument between liberal idealists and conservative realists had to do with means primarily, not ends, which is why neoconservatives, though coming out of the liberal idealist tradition, get along with the realists. The objection to Carter was that he raised the profile of human rights in a way that hampered strategic flexibility. As the Allies discovered in aiding Stalin during World War II, foreign affairs sometimes requires "lesser evilism", and Carter made it more difficult to deal with unsavory regimes for the greater good. Finally, the Reagan Administration was one of the most ideologically motivated in history, and was rife with neoconservative influence. The Bush Administration was somewhat less fervent, but also actively involved in trying to shape the devolution of Soviet power so that there was as little bloodshed as possible.........